Seminar X -- Lecture 1

0:00man's right we need to start with the

0:01graph of desire

0:04but first and foremost let's talk about

0:06this praying mantis business

0:09the praying mantis is key

0:12so the passage comes to us

0:16at the bottom of page five

0:19notice the last sentence

0:22of the last full paragraph

0:25he's looking for a formula that will

0:27help him understand the essential

0:29relationship between anxiety and the

0:32desire of the other

0:35that's what's at stake here

0:37in order to understand anxiety we have

0:39to understand desire and not just any

0:42desire the desire of a big o other

0:46we're going to talk about all of these

0:47terms we're going to get them all ironed

0:49out for you

0:51enough for you to at least diagnose your

0:53parents

0:55okay so here's the fable for those who

0:58weren't there he says on page five

1:01the amusing image i briefly set up

1:03before you

1:04myself donning the animal mask with

1:06which the sorcerer in the cave of three

1:08brothers is covered i pictured myself

1:11faced with another animal a real one

1:13this time taken to be a gigantic for the

1:16sake of story a praying

1:19mantis

1:20since i didn't know which mask i was

1:22wearing you can easily imagine that i

1:24had some reason not to feel reassured in

1:27the event that by chance this mask might

1:31have been just what it took to lead my

1:34partner into some error as to my

1:36identity

1:38the whole thing was well underscored by

1:41the fact that as i confessed

1:43i couldn't see my own image in the

1:45enigmatic mirror of the ocular globe

1:51okay so what we have here at the opening

1:54of seminar 10

1:56is this weird kind of elusive reference

1:58to some weird praying mantis

2:01example that he's working out

2:04here's how we figure this

2:07there's lacan no imagine yourself

2:11you're wearing a praying mantis mask

2:14and you don't know if you're wearing the

2:15male or the female praying mantis mask

2:19and along comes some

2:22horny

2:23female praying mantis

2:26now if you know anything about these

2:28insects

2:30you know that the female

2:32is huge

2:34much larger than the male

2:38and that after sex the female bites the

2:41head off the male

2:43so they engage in some kind of like

2:47there's some [ __ ] killing that's

2:49happening there

2:50now you don't know

2:52whether you're wearing the male or the

2:54female mask

2:55if you're wearing the mail mask

2:58you're [ __ ]

3:00well i mean you're about to have this

3:01incredible experience you're gonna have

3:03sex with a big sexy horny praying mantis

3:07woman thing

3:08and then she's gonna kill you she's

3:09gonna rip your head off

3:11okay that's a pretty horrifying prospect

3:13right

3:15if however you're wearing the female

3:17mask chances are she's just going to

3:19pass right by you

3:24many people would rather assume

3:28this is lacan's point

3:29that they are wearing the male mask

3:34and about to be [ __ ] killed

3:37than to deal with the ambiguity of not

3:40knowing what's about to come

3:44anxiety

3:46is not knowing what's about to come

3:50but fully realizing that you are somehow

3:54potentially more or less bound up

3:58with a

3:58desirous big

4:00other

4:02so the khan's playing with the idea of

4:04the big other here it's

4:06a little other that just happens to be

4:08huge

4:12anxiety is feeling that you are caught

4:14up smothered

4:16engulfed is a great word for this

4:19engulfed by the desire of a much more

4:22powerful being than you

4:24but you don't know what they're gonna do

4:27with you you just know that you're gonna

4:29get somehow [ __ ] killed or you suspect

4:32that's a possibility

4:34now obviously here

4:37you are the child

4:41and the horny

4:42female praying mantis is the primary

4:45caregiver

4:47this is according to lacan the source of

4:50anxiety

4:52more often than not it is a child

4:55confronting

4:57the overwhelming

5:00engulfing inescapable desirousness of a

5:04primary caregiver

5:07now this could be

5:09you as a child

5:11and your parents flaunting their adult

5:14organs around you

5:16it could be you as a child

5:19with a single parent who's oftentimes

5:22bringing home different partners

5:26it could be you as a child

5:28perhaps with a parent

5:30making some sort of sexual reference in

5:33front of you maybe even horribly so to

5:36you

5:39it could also be just having a primary

5:42caregiver that cried a little too much

5:45that seemed a little bit unstable

5:49someone in other words who did not

5:51provide a containing environment for you

5:54who was not able to allow you to feel

5:56held

6:01but instead you feel endangered

6:05with them as the primary source of this

6:07danger

6:10okay

6:12this is what he's up to with the praying

6:14mantis example

6:17the key question comes on page six

6:20chevro right

6:22you can see this in his essay on the

6:23subversion of the subject and the

6:25dialectic of desire it's published in a

6:28cree you can check it out let me know if

6:30you need a copy i'll happily send

6:31happily send it to you here he's just

6:33kind of summarizing this stuff

6:35as you move down on page six you see in

6:37ital's

6:38what does the other want with me

6:42that's the question that you have to

6:44face

6:45and you're asking as this female praying

6:47mantis approaches you what do they want

6:49with me

6:51but the french word for me here is moi

6:55which you also know gives lacan the

6:57little italicized m

7:00that means ego which is why a couple

7:03lines down he says

7:07but also a suspended questioning that

7:09directly concerns the ego

7:12not how does he want me

7:14but and here's the key question it's

7:16kind of wonky the way the translator has

7:18put it

7:19but it works

7:20what does he

7:23want concerning this place

7:26of the ego

7:32what does the other want with me at the

7:34level of my ego

7:38what are they asking of me not the level

7:40of the unconscious not at the level of

7:42my split subjectivity but me at the

7:44level of my ego

7:47and the ego if we can just do some

7:49shorthand work here

7:51is this very fragile composite figure

7:55that's formed out of a hodgepodge of

7:58feeling woefully insecure fragmented

8:02divided

8:04uncertain

8:06and then coupling that with all of these

8:09ideal egos these specular images of

8:12people who we think are awesome a parent

8:16a model a celebrity an athlete and we

8:19squeeze those things together

8:21i feel really inadequate but someone

8:24once told me i look like somebody who i

8:26believe is beautiful

8:28and the ego is some figure that tries to

8:31hold all that [ __ ] together

8:35in the freudian sense we have the ego as

8:37a kind of referee that's constantly

8:40waging and monitoring a battle between

8:44the id and the superego

8:46for lacan it's kind of like

8:48a hyperactive sense of self that is

8:51always trying to and quote me on this

8:54keep its [ __ ] together

8:57the ego is the part of us that is always

8:59trying to appear as though we know what

9:02time it is

9:04know how to dance

9:08have our heads screwed on right i'm

9:10purposefully using these kind of like

9:11bumper sticker slogans

9:14the principle that guides the ego

9:16freud had this right is the reality

9:18principle

9:19the ego knows how to wait in line

9:23and not murder somebody

9:25although i have to admit i just got a

9:27fart app for my phone and i've been

9:30practicing with this in line it is so

9:32epic it's so epic the toughest part is

9:35just keeping a straight face so i'll be

9:37in line and i have this like fart app

9:39and so i'll do a really long fart and

9:41then there's a long pause and then i'll

9:42do a little short fart and then i try

9:44and turn to the person behind me and i

9:45just say i'm sorry

9:47and then just keep moving forward i

9:49don't know i haven't gotten much in

9:51terms of good reactions from this but

9:53it's a gross violation of everything the

9:55ego stands for

9:57the ego at most is going to fart

9:59silently

10:01and hope for the best

10:02maybe throw a little bit of shade at the

10:04person behind you in line

10:06the ego adheres to this reality

10:08principle that says i know how to wait

10:10in line and not [ __ ] myself

10:14that's the ego at work it's somebody who

10:17i say it again

10:18the part of us that knows how to keep

10:20its [ __ ] together

10:23and so the question here about anxiety

10:25is

10:25what does the big other want from that

10:28part of me

10:31why is the big ego coming after me at

10:33that level

10:34what

10:35aspect of my ego is the big other

10:39drawn to

10:43lacan says some stuff on those momentous

10:46pages 45 to 46

10:49that we'll get to tonight about this

10:52he suspects that in the case of the

10:54neurotic

10:55and neurosis is about as close as any of

10:57us can come to being normal

11:00in fact normalcy

11:02is just what's average what usually

11:04occurs for luck on

11:06being normal though is not something

11:08that lacan even considers the closest we

11:11come to

11:12normalcy is neurosis

11:16one shade removed is perversion and the

11:18clinical structure past that is

11:20psychosis

11:23what

11:24the big other

11:26wants

11:28from the ego

11:30is precisely what the ego can't bear to

11:32admit to itself

11:36that it does not have its ship together

11:39that

11:40it is as much if not more so a

11:42fragmented body

11:46than a hodgepodge of ideal egos

11:49and lacan is precise here

11:51the other wants me to signal

11:54precisely what my ego can't bear to

11:57admit

11:58namely

11:59castration

12:02that i am not an ego but in fact a split

12:05subjectivity somebody who doesn't know

12:08what they want who is divided confused

12:11and dependent

12:14in which case what the other lacks

12:17the cause of its desire

12:20is a signal or a signifier of my own

12:23castration so there's another term we

12:25have to figure out here is castration

12:29in the neurotic

12:31this experience

12:34produces anxiety

12:37what we'll also see though

12:39is that in the case of the pervert

12:42this is the rallying cry for his results

12:45this is the opportunity structure for

12:47not anxiety but enjoyment

12:50the pervert wants nothing more

12:53than to show up and be your dildo

12:56they want to be used and abused to help

12:59you reach zhu sant's big other the

13:02pervert doesn't

13:03just assume that they're wearing the

13:05male mask the pervert says

13:08even if i'm wearing the female mask

13:10let's pretend it's a male one

13:13let's get after this thing that is yours

13:16big other

13:17i'm the one who can get you off the

13:20pervert goes for it

13:22so what gives the neurotic this kind of

13:24overweening sense of anxiety sometimes

13:27even acute anxiety the pervert actually

13:30embraces

13:32and says yeah i can be that for you

13:35i'm happy to be factored in in an

13:38enigmatic way

13:40into your desire big other

13:43now the key word here

13:45is desire

13:50which is why

13:51on page 15 in our seminar

13:54if you look at the top of the page

13:57this is the end

13:59of his first lecture

14:02on anxiety

14:05the top of 15.

14:07and with lacan what we know is

14:09it's usually at the end of his seminars

14:13at the end of a lecture that he really

14:15kind of comes clean

14:16i i figure at some level the guy must

14:18just look down and realize that he has

14:21spent 45 minutes drawing a weird diagram

14:23that's like okay okay okay let me just

14:25tell you what i'm really talking about

14:26okay okay

14:27and then it just spits it out

14:29he likes to end with something puzzling

14:33alluring provocative and if he's lucky

14:36something brilliant and here on the top

14:38of 15

14:40let's guess what he ends with

14:42notice the sentence starts at the bottom

14:44of 14. i'm not developing a psychology

14:48for you

14:50a disquisition on the unreal reality

14:53that is called the psyche

14:55but a disquisition on a praxis that

14:58warrants a name

15:00eratology

15:03from the greek word eros

15:05meaning sexual desire

15:08the greeks had lots of different terms

15:10for love

15:12and desire eros is one that points to

15:15sexual desire

15:18heroes is one that also gives us the

15:20word erotic

15:22what lacan suggests he's developing here

15:24in other words is a dir desirology

15:29not a psychology if you want to

15:31understand the psychology of anxiety

15:33lacan says you have to first understand

15:35what he understands as the desirology

15:38of the human subject

15:41next sentence plain and simple it's a

15:44question of desire

15:47that's what's up with anxiety

15:51so just as he starts with desire so also

15:55also will we

15:58and i want to remind you again what's at

16:00stake here

16:02desire is the antidote to anxiety

16:09it's by awakening desire in another that

16:13you can help them stave off anxiety

16:16it is a defense against anxiety

16:21and if you want me to just cut to the

16:22chase i'll tell you why

16:25the cause of desire is the experience of

16:28lack

16:31feeling like you're missing out

16:34missing something

16:35that's what gets desire going lack

16:39anxiety is what happens when lack

16:43is missing

16:45in other words when lack is lacking

16:48someone has taken that from you when

16:51lack is lacking and you feel totally

16:53smothered and engulfed without any

16:55breathing room

16:57it doesn't mean you feel fulfilled it

16:59means you feel overwhelmed

17:02that is anxiety

17:06but in order to understand what it means

17:08for lack to be lacking

17:11we have to first understand how lack

17:12works

17:14and that puts us on the path of desire

17:16and so that's where things begin for us

17:19hence

17:20as we've noted the importance of the

17:22graph of desire

17:23which carries us back to the start of

17:25the first lecture

17:27on page four where he trots out this

17:30famous graph of desire

17:32that he develops in the mid to late 50s

17:35and eventually publishes in the

17:36subversion of the subject essay we're

17:38going to spend some time working on it

17:40tonight

17:42first though let's pause

17:43take some questions comments what's on

17:46your brain y'all

17:52and i will do this periodically just to

17:54make sure

17:56that we're as caught up as we can be

17:58before we take the next step

18:07i just want to um

18:10say that

18:10lacan is so negative

18:14i have

18:16when i first read him i was just

18:19was like

18:20completely inundated by how awesomeness

18:23the idea was

18:25but then

18:26when i'm rereading him over and over

18:28again he realized that

18:29you really accounts for the negative

18:32experience of being a human

18:34that's so quickly put and i know you

18:36don't mean it that way xinhua i know you

18:39mean it as kind of like what a pain in

18:40the ass but he is

18:43the great thinker of the negative

18:46and that's really important here because

18:48what he fundamentally means by

18:50castration

18:51is prohibition

18:53but lacan is primarily concerned with

18:56the great source of his thought

18:59is

19:00negation at the level of a simple

19:02signifier

19:04no

19:07don't forget the name of the father

19:10is the know of the father that's what

19:13he's messing with with the name of the

19:14father because in french

19:17nom name sounds exactly the same as

19:19non-no

19:22he is a negative thinker

19:25he might you might even say that he

19:27belongs in this tradition of negative

19:29dialectical thought

19:31out of the frankfurt school

19:33he's very much in that line that extends

19:35from hegel to marx to the frankfurters

19:39he just got a french twist to it

19:42so for lacan the negative is fundamental

19:45to what he's up to

19:47in fact

19:50i would say that what he is doing at the

19:52level of the no

19:55at the level of the nothing

19:57at the level of the no thing

20:01i'd say that's the molten core of his

20:04thought

20:05particularly in the 50s and the 60s

20:07so the negative is crucial here i'm glad

20:10you pointed out maybe not maybe that's

20:12not how you intended it um but he would

20:14certainly be like thank you ma'am

20:17yeah i wonder whether

20:19what wasn't he very disparaging of the

20:21positive psychology school

20:26and all these guys

20:27i don't know what positive psychology

20:29means

20:30and i'm sure there are some people out

20:31here in this audience who would be happy

20:34to weigh in on this

20:36um do you want to follow up and just

20:38give us a little more clarity as to what

20:39you mean by that

20:41positive psychology and my knowledge is

20:44very limited um but um as far as i know

20:48has something to do with

20:50being sick of all the tradition of

20:52exploring the unhappiness of human life

20:55and want to study the positive

20:57experiences not just simple you know

21:00what we socially label as positive like

21:03happy or

21:05but they're trying to talk about

21:07um

21:08not the sick patients but the humans

21:10that we all consider as has achieved

21:12great achieved great things

21:14so positive psychology that's why the

21:18maslow the infamous maslow hierarchy of

21:20knees on top of this sense of

21:22achievement

21:23the individual who sort of outdid all of

21:26us and was able to completely fulfill

21:28himself and um so that's sort of

21:32maslow's idea

21:35said that and also i ran across a lot of

21:37that in my study of um outdoor extreme

21:41sports because the positive psychologist

21:44has the loudest voice to speak about

21:47you know mountain climbing it makes you

21:49feel fulfilled it's a positive

21:51experience but i as an inherently a

21:54negative person

21:56also a leukemian i was looking for it

21:58can't be that positive there must be

22:00something negative in there

22:03let's let's put a bookmark in this and

22:06we'll see if we circle back around to it

22:08because the type of positivity and

22:09fulfillment that you're describing i

22:12might suggest is

22:14the horizon for analytic technique

22:17lacanian analysis would end in the

22:20conditions of possibility for something

22:22like that

22:23but the

22:24work of understanding the theory and

22:27technique of lacanian psychoanalysis

22:30like every good hegelian

22:32and don't forget that's how lacan cut

22:34his teeth

22:35involves passing through the negative

22:38so that's where we find ourselves right

22:40now and desire is very much about the

22:43negative not that it's a bad thing

22:46in many ways it's it's beyond good and

22:48evil just as language is beyond good and

22:50evil

22:51but i want to talk about this graph of

22:53desire

22:54on page four

22:57because this is where we start seeing

22:59a theory of desire emerging

23:02incidentally desire is just that little

23:04italicized d in the upper

23:07right hand quadrant of the graph

23:11what's important for us is to get a

23:13sense

23:14of how we get to that little d

23:18that little d is desire

23:21to its left

23:24is the math theme for fantasy

23:28and then everything above that you see

23:30the field of castration in juices

23:33we're gonna have to earn

23:34that right now though i want to talk

23:37about how we get to that little d

23:42and i want to do it

23:44by conducting an experiment

23:46something i've never done some of you

23:48may find it hard to believe that this is

23:50the first time that i've actually hung

23:52oversized post-it notes in my bedroom

23:56and surrounded my bed with colorful

23:57markers some of you may be surprised to

24:00see what i have constructed

24:02here in my bedroom

24:06hold tight y'all

24:09so i've been doing this virtual stuff

24:11for quite a while

24:12and i'm a little tired

24:15of not having my white boards

24:17those of you that have been in the

24:18lecture hall with me you know

24:21my office and my lecture halls it's

24:23floor to ceiling white boards and by god

24:25if they're not full

24:27after every 100 minute session

24:29and so what i've tried to do here is

24:31i've got two

24:33oversized post-it notes and a bunch of

24:35my kids markers so hold on a second

24:43the experiment involves us lighting this

24:46up so that i can draw some pretty

24:48pictures for you

24:51and the picture i want to draw

24:54to start

24:56can you all see this okay

24:58thumbs up desiree say no somebody's

25:01saying yeah

25:03okay well don't worry what i'll do is

25:04after we're done with this

25:06i will bring the camera up closer so you

25:09can see what i've drawn

25:11and i'll also

25:13take a picture of this and send it out

25:15to everybody so you'll have an image

25:17that you can zoom in and really see i

25:19mean i'll do it in daylight if i can

25:24okay

25:29so this bottom part of the graph of

25:31desire on page four

25:34you see how we have

25:39a split subject

25:41and then an arrow that leads up to a big

25:43a in a circle

25:46and then an arrow that hooks from the

25:48big a to a little withered s

25:51in front of

25:52a big a in parens and then the arrow

25:54zips back down to a big i

25:57next to a big a in parens so we're not

26:00going to work on all these terms

26:02the bottom

26:04portion of this split subject little i a

26:08little m

26:09big i big a is basically the mirror

26:11stage

26:13we're not going to dig into that

26:14what we're working towards is desire so

26:17i'm going to cut some corners here

26:20if you want the full details holler at

26:22me and i'll send you the lectures where

26:24i develop these things more fully

26:27right now we're going to start with how

26:29lacan develops this graph of desire

26:40the covetera is so ridiculous

26:43my dog's looking at me like what the

26:44hell is wrong with you bro

26:46so

26:49this chart begins the graph of desire

26:52begins with the simple quandary

26:54what happens when a baby cries

26:58here

26:59it's symbolized by a triangle

27:02thumbs up can you see this

27:04is it just way too far away

27:06no your blur is on

27:08yeah you can turn that thing right

27:11it's like a security feature thing

27:14thank you you all wait how do i turn my

27:16blur off

27:19change background

27:22i got something i see

27:25black background blur yo is that is that

27:27better

27:28yeah yeah

27:30okay now can you see a triangle

27:33yes too challenging you can see a

27:35triangle yes okay

27:38so

27:38this triangle is a baby

27:41this is the subject of pure need

27:46a baby in need whatever that need is

27:49they don't know what the need is cries

27:51out

27:53and they cry out and if they're lucky

27:59that cry

28:01reaches the ears of a big a other

28:04here symbolized and marked as the

28:06primary caregiver this can be a mommy

28:09this can be a daddy this can be an uncle

28:11this can be a robot this can be baby

28:13jesus it can be whatever you want this

28:16big other

28:23is the primary caregiver i mark it as pc

28:27and

28:29this is a full other it's not barred

28:32it's a capital a without a line through

28:34it which means that this is somebody who

28:37we think has all the answers

28:40this is like the dictionary the oed

28:43every single word possible to be used is

28:47in that dictionary

28:49this is in many ways

28:54the symbolic

28:57it is language it is a collection of all

29:00the laws rules and norms

29:04that in this case might govern a family

29:07and i remember when this came to me

29:10my kid was about to be born i had no

29:12idea what was going to happen and so i

29:14called my brother

29:15i said bro what am i going to do if this

29:17kid cries i'm not going to have a clue

29:19what to do with this thing some of you

29:21have little kids as he grinning out

29:23there he said listen dude there are only

29:25four things that could possibly be

29:27happening

29:28if your kid cries first try and feed it

29:31it's probably just hungry

29:33i said what if i feed it and it doesn't

29:35want to eat okay okay then check its

29:38diaper then it probably just took a [ __ ]

29:40and needs a diaper changed

29:41okay okay i changed the diaper i fed the

29:43kid i changed the diaper it's still

29:45crying okay okay it's probably tired try

29:47and get it to sleep

29:49eight hours later this kid will not

29:52sleep

29:53okay what could possibly be going on

29:56at that point my brother says uh just

29:57call the doctor

30:00those were the four options

30:02those are the four options and there are

30:05only four options that is the totality

30:07of every possible response i could make

30:10to the cry of a baby

30:16are you with me so far

30:19that's what this big a the big other is

30:22it is a locus of signifiers a collection

30:25a treasure trove

30:28it is the dictionary

30:29it is all four of those possibilities

30:32that my brother

30:33gave to me

30:35now here's what happens though

30:37when my child cries

30:39i can't show up and do all four things

30:42at once right

30:43i have to choose one of those things

30:46the little s

30:48over here is italicized in lower case

30:51which in lacanian terms means it's

30:53lesser than

30:54here this little s

30:56next to the big a

31:01means

31:02signified

31:04according to the big a

31:06and you don't have to get fancy with

31:07this

31:08by signified according to the big a we

31:11mean

31:12meaning of the child's cry

31:15as interpreted by

31:18the primary caregiver so if big a is the

31:21interpreter

31:24of the child's cry and they sift through

31:26all the possible responses

31:29little s according to big a meaning of

31:32the child's cry according to the big

31:34other

31:35is when i've chosen one thing

31:38i've chosen to bring in a blanket

31:40to bring it some food so this is the

31:43field of meaning

31:47not of interpreter but interpretation

31:53for all the communication studies folks

31:54out there

31:55this is when i have activated my

31:58capacity as the interpreter of a baby's

32:00cry

32:01and decided what to do with it

32:04in this case i decide okay i'm going to

32:06choose food

32:08i'm going to guess that this cry means

32:10the kid is hungry so i as interpreter

32:13will interpret the meaning of this cry

32:17as one that signals hunger

32:21and so i bring the child food

32:27now what makhan tells us here

32:31when he's developing the graph of desire

32:33is that this produces something

32:36we'll come to it in just a second

32:38right now i want to suggest

32:42that

32:43we have need

32:45down here

32:47but by the time we get to this

32:52level signaled by the orange

32:57we're not just dealing with the child's

33:01biomaterialistic

33:02needs

33:04down here

33:08with the subject of pure need this is

33:10like just a worm

33:12and if you know kids you know that at

33:14this level they're just basic little

33:16worms like all of our all mammalian

33:19organisms are there's an indoor and

33:21outdoor and then all these appendages

33:23and stuff that help us do warm like [ __ ]

33:25in the world

33:27here though this is a purely biological

33:31materialistic

33:35not they like to shop at forever 21 but

33:37materialistic in the sense that they

33:39deal

33:39with material with matter

33:42this is bio animality down here

33:50what happens though when the big other

33:54the adult

33:56starts to interpret

33:57the

33:58cries and the bellows coming from this

34:01biological

34:03register

34:04is those cries

34:06are taken out of the realm of

34:08biomateriality

34:10and brought into the realm of

34:12sociolinguistics

34:15i write lang here for language

34:18this is the field of signification

34:24the child doesn't know that they're

34:26hungry knowledge can only occur in the

34:29field of language

34:32all the child knows if it knows anything

34:35is that they're uncomfortable

34:37they cry when they're uncomfortable no

34:39matter what the discomfort is

34:41our job as primary caregivers is to

34:44interpret that cry assign meaning to it

34:47and that is all stuff that can only

34:49occur

34:51in the sociolinguistic field known as

34:54the symbolic

34:56where signification can occur so what

34:59we're doing is we're taking a cry

35:02and turning it into a signifier

35:06that means something

35:08okay

35:10the word for that

35:12in lacanian terms is not need

35:15but demand

35:20demand

35:22is need articulated

35:25in language

35:28it's need that has been encoded

35:31into the symbolic

35:33that has been assigned some terms

35:36that is the meaning of demand

35:40and so if you really want to like if you

35:42really want to know like what is up with

35:44the lacanian registers here it is

35:46there's need

35:48there's demand above it is desire and

35:51beyond that is drive

35:54and the test of whether or not you know

35:57what the hell's cracking here

35:59is how high you can climb on that ladder

36:04right now i'm giving you the first two

36:05runs need and demand

36:08and once we understand those desire will

36:11follow

36:12and we can keep the drive alive another

36:14day

36:16but for now

36:17what i'm trying to point out to you here

36:23is how we get this figure down at the

36:26bottom

36:27this s means subject

36:30and the bar through it means split

36:33it's a bar subject

36:35now you can imagine

36:37the two sides of this being

36:42this process whereby the baby cries and

36:46the parent interprets that cry a signs

36:49of meaning brings in a blanket

36:51over time

36:53produces

36:55a little kid

36:57and in particular a split subjectivity

37:01somebody who realizes that they can't

37:03always cry and get what they want

37:06because eventually they learn the same

37:08language

37:10that the parent has that the primary

37:13caregiver brings to the table to the

37:14point that you'll hear a kid

37:16bellowing at the grocery store and the

37:18parent will say

37:19use your words

37:21i don't understand you when you cry like

37:23that

37:24and the kid is like yeah but

37:28just kid

37:30and you have these child these children

37:32who are really struggling they're so

37:34over wrought at a biomaterialistic level

37:37but they're struggling to put it into

37:39words and then and it just

37:44hit me yeah

37:46and your teeth are vibrating you

37:48remember the [ __ ] when you were a kid is

37:49ridiculous but that's the game

37:52is you have to figure out a way to

37:53articulate your needs

37:57at the level of demand the great irony

37:59here of course is that when the primary

38:01caregiver says use your words what

38:03they're really saying is use mine

38:06it's not your language it's their

38:10language

38:11that's why another word for castration

38:13is alienation

38:16to become a split subject is to allow

38:18yourself to be alienated in a language

38:21that was not your own making

38:24you see

38:25the english language

38:27wasn't invented to coincide with our

38:30births right it was here a long time

38:33before we arrived in fact the great

38:35signifier in the english language that

38:37is most important to you your name

38:40was probably chosen before you were even

38:43born

38:45if you come from a sicilian background

38:47like i do

38:48your name was chosen generations before

38:51because there's a very strict rotation

38:53in terms of who gets what name

38:56thankfully my parents broke with that

38:58tradition because everybody on one half

39:00of my family they're either named frank

39:04phillip

39:05joseph or some weird combination of

39:07those things

39:09i got frank philip the first second

39:11junior senior i got philip frank i got

39:13joseph frank i got joseph x i got all

39:15these that's all these three names but

39:17it's all set up through the strict

39:18rotation the firstborn will be named

39:21after the maternal grandfather my point

39:23here is that

39:25the language

39:26that the big other subjects your cry to

39:31predates your birth

39:34and absolutely your cry you are thrown

39:37into it

39:38for those of you on the philosophy

39:40spectrum

39:41this is what heidegger means by

39:42throneness

39:44you are thrown into

39:46dropped into a world

39:48that is not of your own making

39:51and you're asked to fit into it

39:54that is why the subject according to

39:57lacan is split

39:59because on the one hand they are still

40:02bio

40:05materialistic

40:08beings

40:11in other words

40:15they are embodied

40:17a split subject each of us we are all

40:20one part embodied

40:24and another part

40:26disembodied

40:28at the level of language

40:32we are also

40:34sociolinguistic beings

40:44what i mean by this is that

40:46there can be and always are two versions

40:48of us

40:49so think of it this way

40:52there's the version of you that felt

40:54like crap

40:55after you went out partying the night

40:57before and there you are sitting on the

40:59toilet

41:01in your nasty ass pajama pants

41:04smelling like whatever happened last

41:06night you're just a mess you got vomit

41:08still on your shirt whatever the case is

41:10you're a beast you feel me you are a

41:14bio-materialistic beast

41:16and you're sitting on the toilet about

41:18to die

41:20and then you get your phone out

41:23and you start looking at your pictures

41:24from the night before and you're like

41:26[ __ ] i look kind of cute in that one

41:28and so you go to instagram

41:31in between taking a [ __ ] and vomiting

41:34your mind out you go to instagram and

41:37you post the image of yourself

41:39and there you go

41:41looking fine looking great

41:43before things went south the night

41:46before

41:48this is how it works for lacan

41:51there's always your irl self

41:55and then there's the version of you

41:56that's circulating

41:58at the level of the signifier here at

42:00the level of the selfie

42:02there's you irl in real life

42:05embodied

42:07and feeling awful i use that image very

42:10carefully because

42:11the lacanian origin of this is the

42:13fragmented body that all infants

42:16experience as their own

42:19and then there's the very polished clean

42:22up put together version of you that you

42:24decide to post online the selfie

42:28this is you at the level of

42:30sociolinguisticality this is you at the

42:32level of the symbolic

42:38this is you at the level of the mother

42:40tongue

42:42this is you also

42:44on the envelope that it's coursing his

42:47way towards you right now

42:49this is your name on an envelope

42:51this is your bank account

42:54information that russian hackers just

42:56took and you won't realize it until six

42:59months later

43:00that's also a version of you it's you at

43:02the level of the signifier not embodied

43:06in your skin

43:07but abstracted

43:09and existing at the level of the

43:11signifier

43:13now if you read

43:14lacan's version of the subject essay

43:17you'll see that this is the enunciating

43:19subject

43:26this would be the embodied person who

43:28feels the urge to speak and say [ __ ]

43:32and then here is the grammatical subject

43:38this is the being that appears the part

43:40of us that appears in language

43:42very well represented by the vertical

43:45pronoun i

43:47so anytime somebody uses this shifter we

43:51call it in linguistics

43:52i because it shifts whoever uses it then

43:55becomes the referent for that term i

43:59if i say i'm the kind of person who

44:01likes to go to the movies

44:04i'm already split myself there's the

44:07part of me that wants you to recognize

44:10me

44:11in society as somebody who enjoys good

44:14film cinema i might even say i like to

44:17go to film festivals instead and i want

44:20you to see me that way because that

44:21brings certain social currency

44:24but then there's another part of me

44:26an embodied part of me

44:29the part of me that felt the urge to

44:32tell you that

44:34the part of me that feels insecure

44:36enough that i need your stamp of

44:38approval please see me as a cultivated

44:41being

44:42i don't feel cultivated i can't help but

44:45shake and carry with me

44:49my bluegrass roots everywhere i go my

44:52tennessee red dirt upbringing

44:54the fact that i was born and raised in

44:57southern indiana

44:59i can only hide my twin behind twenty

45:01dollar words for so long

45:03but by god if i haven't learned a lot of

45:0520 words over the years

45:08you feel me

45:09that part of us that feels

45:12very much like an inadequate totally

45:15dependent

45:16discombobulated baby

45:19is still with us

45:22this is the origin of the split subject

45:25what we layer on top of it

45:28is this

45:29ego stuff

45:34and usually what we do with the embodied

45:37parts of us is we repress them

45:41that's why i chose the image of farting

45:42earlier

45:45at most you're going to fart silently

45:49usually

45:50this part of us gets shoved into the

45:52unconscious

45:54which is partly why when we dream

45:57we dream of being torn apart

46:01which is partly why when you have an

46:02anxiety dream it's like you're running

46:04as fast as you can but your legs don't

46:06work

46:07you're trying to go down the stairs but

46:09you're just like falling and floating

46:10and landing in weird places

46:12you're reaching for something and you

46:14can't quite get it it's because that's

46:17what it was like when you were

46:20a baby

46:21that's the fragmented body that we've

46:23repressed that memory of being this

46:26totally inadequate woefully dependent

46:29zero motor skill [ __ ] up

46:34that's why we dream of being torn apart

46:36we dream

46:38of the part of us that we feel deep down

46:40in our bones the insecurities

46:45us on the toilet that's why i stick with

46:47these images

46:49so here's how we get the split subject

46:52now i think what we can do

46:54is return to some more desk work here

46:57because it'll give us a chance to be a

46:58little more detailed

47:01while that's happening though now's a

47:03good chance to ask some questions if

47:05you've got them

47:14hey sam does does the feeling there of

47:17that you know deep in your bones of

47:18returning to that fragmented space does

47:20that bear anything with what he's doing

47:22with

47:23freud's unheimlich and the heimlich

47:25stuff

47:26it does okay it absolutely does

47:30it means unhomely it's the unhomely we

47:33we have it as uncanny in the english

47:35language

47:37but what lacan is saying here is what

47:39pops up

47:41what appears in the space

47:43that we should experience as lack when

47:46anxiety occurs

47:48is something uncanny

47:50it's like a version of us that is just a

47:53little bit off

47:55so you can think of this too in terms of

47:57like um

47:59an animation there's a term called the

48:00valley of the uncanny

48:02that maybe some of you've heard of it's

48:04like this percentage

48:06and if you've seen polar express you

48:08know exactly what i'm talking about here

48:11if you take

48:12an animated image and you make it look

48:1595 percent realistic

48:19most people are going to go along with

48:20that but when you cross that line i

48:23think it's like 97 or 98

48:26when you cross that line and it looks so

48:28close to being real that it starts to

48:31get a little

48:32freaky and instead of enjoying it kids

48:35are now starting to cry

48:38because pleasure has turned to horror

48:42that's kind of what lacan's getting at

48:43here with the uncanny

48:45it's a kind of horrific doppelganger or

48:48a double

48:49that looks human looks like us

48:53but is very jacked in a way that we

48:55almost can't quite place it

48:58deja vu is a kind of french version of

49:01this where you feel like you've been

49:03somewhere before

49:05but you can't quite figure out even

49:07though you know you've never been there

49:08and you can't quite figure out the link

49:09that's connecting the world you're in

49:11now and the one that you're imagining

49:15that's the uncanny too because you can't

49:17quite put your finger on it like if you

49:19watch polar express

49:20and you watch those fools moving around

49:23you're like man i can't put my finger on

49:25that [ __ ] but please change the channel

49:27turn that off whatever that is like look

49:30at the way that his eyes are moving turn

49:31that [ __ ] off

49:32stop that

49:34you just want it to stop because you

49:36can't quite put your finger on what's so

49:37weird about it that would absolutely be

49:39the case this is a body that looks

49:42pretty normal but it's functioning in a

49:44slightly [ __ ] up way

49:46they're just a little bit off

49:49and usually we have words like intuition

49:52you know you're going to intuit you into

49:53it sometimes when somebody is not just

49:56being nice to you because they want to

49:57be nice to you

49:58they have an ulterior motive you just

50:00kind of intuit you're like man

50:01something's going on here this doesn't

50:03feel right

50:05and you'll talk about west coast not

50:07everybody hears from the west coast but

50:09you'll hear some stuff like

50:10yeah man just really vibey something was

50:13just and that can be good things or it

50:15can be like the vibe was way off man i

50:18can't i really can't explain it i just

50:20let me just tell you it just felt weird

50:22right so we go to all these like

50:23mystical places

50:25you're right nicholas this is exactly

50:26what lacan has in mind

50:28it'll get more complicated than that the

50:31emphasis here though should be on horror

50:35there's something really unsettling

50:38that's why he's bringing up freud's

50:39notion of dasoon heimlicha here

50:42unsettling

50:44unhome

50:45like

50:48and that's why i bring up deja vu too

50:51it's like you've been there you know

50:52that place the way you know your home

50:55but it's somehow different something's

50:57off

51:01so

51:02the other important part here about

51:04unheimlicka that is crucial

51:07is that it brings with it a metaphor of

51:09space

51:10and place

51:12what lacan is really working with here

51:15is a

51:16topological

51:18understanding of anxiety

51:20tapos topos

51:22he's thinking about the spatialization

51:25of anxiety

51:27and the metaphors he uses from start to

51:29finish in our talk in our lectures for

51:31today

51:33are those of spatiality

51:35in fact there's a passage early on in

51:37the seminar where he talks about how

51:39much space

51:40does he need to give people in order to

51:42talk about anxiety without causing them

51:45to feel anxious

51:48you'll note for instance

51:54the spatial metaphor

51:56that occurs

51:58on pages eight to nine

52:03this is the stuff that this is the

52:04reason why it's great to read lacan many

52:07times

52:08because it's the kind of stuff you

52:09wouldn't pick up on unless you've read

52:11the whole thing and know what anxiety is

52:13about

52:14at the bottom of page eight i have

52:16insisted on making this last reference

52:18which is so close to home

52:21that it might strike you as problematic

52:23so as to indicate how i mean to put you

52:26to the question that has been mined from

52:28the start at what distance

52:31is anxiety to be poised so as to speak

52:34to you about it without immediately

52:36shutting it away in a cupboard and

52:38without leaving it in a vague state

52:39either well my goodness at the right

52:43distance

52:44see it's all about getting your spacing

52:46right

52:48if there's no space if somebody's up in

52:50your grill

52:52it's not the right distance and it makes

52:53you feel anxious lacan is basically like

52:56messing with fools here

52:58i mean one that doesn't put us too close

53:01to anyone

53:03at this familiar distance that i've

53:05evoked for you in picking up these

53:07recent references the distance from my

53:11interlocutor who brings me his paper at

53:13the last minute and the distance from

53:16myself who must take the risk here with

53:20my disquisition on anxiety the risk he's

53:23taking is that he's going to say too

53:25much

53:26too soon and mess everybody up

53:29he's going to cause people to feel

53:31anxious about anxiety while he's trying

53:33to teach them what it's all about if he

53:35doesn't give them some breathing room

53:38and then note how this ends

53:40we're going to try and take this anxiety

53:42under our wing

53:43that won't make it any more conspicuous

53:46believe me it's really going to leave us

53:49at the opaque distance that separates us

53:53from those who are closest to us

53:56what is the opaque distance that

53:59separates us from those who are closest

54:01to us

54:03except an experience of the uncanny

54:08there's a sense in which everything we

54:10need to know

54:12is not just in the praying mantis

54:13example but here on page eight to nine

54:16when he's trying to play around with the

54:18idea of how much space to give his

54:20audience to address this topic

54:23and then you'll note from there he

54:24shifts to heidegger sartre and freud

54:28this little triangulation of great

54:29people who've talked about anxiety

54:32kierkegaard mentioned a bit but that's

54:34about it

54:35so he gives them a little bit of

54:37breathing room

54:38and then he dips into freud

54:41with

54:42inhibition symptom and anxiety

54:45that's that weird chart

54:47that pops up on page 13.

54:50and then it's all look on for the rest

54:54so what he does with this kind of

54:55literature review that involves fleeting

54:58references to heidegger sartre

55:02and freud

55:03is he's trying to give his audience some

55:05breathing room

55:07before he tries to shove a lacanian term

55:11for anxiety down their throats

55:21great question about dasoon heimlicha we

55:24will be coming back to it so we don't

55:26need to exhaust it here

55:29what else do you have out there

55:36any other questions before we get back

55:38to what's at stake in this weird little

55:39chart

55:41i had a little uh

55:43oh

55:44so you go

55:46i just had a quick um sort of

55:48backtracking a little bit when you were

55:49talking about what is the big other want

55:51from my ego and you resolved that

55:54as

55:54wanting me to like acknowledge my

55:56fragmentation and my gross you know

55:58materiality type thing and i i

56:01just

56:02scratched down what does the other want

56:04me to desire to be and i wonder if you

56:06feel like that fits as well or if that's

56:07a different direction

56:09i think that that's a it would be an

56:11antidote to anxiety

56:14because it puts us back on the path of

56:16desire

56:18yeah

56:19that that would be the thing and that's

56:21what when we really start getting into

56:22desire which is where we're going to go

56:24next we've done need and demand and now

56:26i want to show you how desire unravels

56:28from that is we're going to be

56:29addressing that very topic

56:32how do we arrive at this famous lacanian

56:36claim

56:37that um our desire is always the desire

56:40of the other

56:42and that's one really great way to put

56:44it

56:45what do they want me to be

56:48and in fact that's really the question

56:50it's the final question that the

56:52neurotic puts to the big other

56:55before they have no choice but to

56:57confront their own castration and that

56:59is what do you want from me

57:03this is the point when the fight has

57:04gone on for 45 minutes

57:06and you lose track of what you're even

57:08fighting about and you turn to your

57:10partner and you say what the [ __ ] do you

57:12want from me like what do you want like

57:14what's the deal just tell me what it is

57:17in other words

57:19issue a demand

57:21give me a demand

57:23tell me what it is you want so that i

57:26can either give it to you or dip

57:32but tell me what you want

57:33and anxiety is right around the cup the

57:35corner

57:38because part of what the other

57:40is dealing with is the fact that they

57:42don't know what they want

57:45but they feel pretty invigorated by you

57:48asking

57:49so the honest answer is i don't know

57:51what i want from you

57:54please keep asking

57:55that would be the hysterics response

57:59the anxious response is something like

58:01this

58:03you know what i want from you

58:06that's what provokes anxiety

58:08like [ __ ] i don't know what you

58:10want from me that's why i asked i don't

58:12know oh you know

58:13you know what i want from you oh my gosh

58:15i have no idea what it is you won't know

58:17for real like legit i don't know what

58:18you want from me oh you

58:20know and then you go to bed and you're

58:22like i can't sleep what the [ __ ] was

58:24that all about that's called anxiety so

58:27this question of what does the other

58:29want me to be

58:32or

58:33what does the other want me to have

58:37having and being will be some concepts

58:38that we start messing with here too

58:41so fundamental to what we're up to

58:44i love this

58:46we're so on track i love it

58:52um can you say a little bit more about

58:55the association of embodiment to

58:58repression

59:00yeah i didn't want to go too far into

59:02that

59:03because it gets into like more freudian

59:05like id based stuff

59:08but i guess what i mean to suggest is

59:10that

59:13the basic

59:15law of society

59:18is enjoy as little as possible

59:22and what that results in typically

59:26is a repression

59:28of the erogenous zones on the human body

59:32where enjoyment is usually experienced

59:36so we call them swimsuit zones for a

59:38reason because it's the part of the

59:40human body usually erogenous zones that

59:43we never show anywhere else

59:46except in the bedroom

59:48it's where you don't have a tan

59:52and that's part of what happens to

59:54embodiment once the child is introduced

59:57into the symbolic as they start feeling

59:59insecure

1:00:00about their body

1:00:02this is partly how freud arrive at the

1:00:04castration complex lacan's doing a

1:00:06little bit of work with that but more at

1:00:08the level of language

1:00:10but it's fundamental here i don't want

1:00:12to go too far into it except to say that

1:00:15at the level of each of our bodies

1:00:19according to lacan we still feel in our

1:00:22bones

1:00:23like babies

1:00:24we still feel like we lack motor skills

1:00:28like we're discombobulated like we are

1:00:31the fragmented body

1:00:33so the mirror stage essay is a good

1:00:35place to read some of this stuff and if

1:00:36you don't want to read it and you just

1:00:38want lectures

1:00:39holler at me and i'll send you a link to

1:00:41something that could help

1:00:43but the baby in front of a mirror

1:00:45usually has to grapple with the

1:00:47experience of realizing that the baby in

1:00:49the mirror the image seems to be a

1:00:52better baby more coordinated

1:00:56less fragmented

1:00:58probably better at competing for

1:01:00resources

1:01:02a baby that should be the subject of our

1:01:04envy

1:01:06and as time goes on that part of us the

1:01:09fragmented part where we always feel

1:01:11like we're basically just worms

1:01:14gets repressed

1:01:16and it's not all that gets repressed but

1:01:18it's one of the things that undergoes

1:01:20primary repression

1:01:23and the trigger for that

1:01:25in the lacanian world

1:01:27is what he calls in our readings the

1:01:28unary trait

1:01:31the primal signifier that introduces the

1:01:35child into language

1:01:38and that primal signifier is no

1:01:43so let me summarize this really quickly

1:01:44what i'm saying here

1:01:47the basic structure of society is the

1:01:50law

1:01:51the basic structure of the law is

1:01:54prohibition

1:01:56thou shalt not

1:01:58and the basic thou shalt not that

1:02:00underpins society is thou shalt not

1:02:03enjoy

1:02:06for those of you that have been around

1:02:07the block you know that when i say

1:02:08enjoyment i don't mean pleasure

1:02:11pleasure is permissible

1:02:13pleasure is a comfy couch it's the chair

1:02:15you're sitting in right now i hope

1:02:18it's that cozy sweatshirt that you're

1:02:19wearing right now

1:02:22not the suit that you didn't put on not

1:02:25the pantsuit

1:02:27this is instead

1:02:29something that feels good

1:02:32pleasure is

1:02:34what happens after a meal

1:02:37enjoyment is what happens when you eat

1:02:39too much

1:02:41enjoyment

1:02:42is the experience of pleasure at its

1:02:44outer limit

1:02:46at the level of pain

1:02:49so

1:02:50joisons is the word we use for enjoyment

1:02:53and the reason why people don't like to

1:02:54translate that much from french is not

1:02:56so much because there's no equivalent

1:02:58but because jewish sons brings with it a

1:03:00sense of sexual enjoyment orgasm

1:03:04and so compare for instance the

1:03:07experience of orgasm which is enjoyment

1:03:11where your body seizes up

1:03:14your face contorts you make all kinds of

1:03:16[ __ ] weird ass noises

1:03:20your body basically spazzes out think

1:03:22about this time how many moments have

1:03:25you had an orgasm and accidentally

1:03:27farted at the same

1:03:28time ha see

1:03:31y'all don't want to admit that [ __ ] but

1:03:32that's real

1:03:34that is the real

1:03:36the real is the fart that happens in the

1:03:38middle of the orgasm

1:03:40the orgasm itself is enjoyment my point

1:03:43here though is that this is a body in

1:03:45duress

1:03:47at the peak of enjoyment you are in a

1:03:50state of seizure

1:03:52that is just

1:03:54pleasure is what happens afterwards when

1:03:56you drift off into a weird kind of sleep

1:04:00pleasure is what happens when you then

1:04:02butt naked walk to the fridge get out

1:04:04the tub of ice cream and start eating it

1:04:06straight

1:04:07there at the counter

1:04:10right that's pleasure

1:04:13they're different

1:04:15the basic prohibition of society is a

1:04:17prohibition against enjoyment

1:04:20you can pursue pleasure thomas jefferson

1:04:23told us as much as you want

1:04:25but don't mess with enjoyment

1:04:29what it means to be genitalized

1:04:33is to have your

1:04:35enjoyment

1:04:37sensors reduced to a few erogenous zones

1:04:42so now what the law says is you can

1:04:44enjoy but only

1:04:47when your penis is involved

1:04:50you can enjoy but only

1:04:52in the swimsuit zone area that's the

1:04:54site of enjoyment if you get off

1:04:57and experience enjoyment involving any

1:05:00other body part

1:05:02welcome to perversion that's what

1:05:04society tells you

1:05:06so to be a properly genitalized being

1:05:09is to live a repressed

1:05:13relation to your human form

1:05:16and it is a form that sometimes farts

1:05:18when it comes

1:05:22and we don't like to talk about that

1:05:23stuff we're grinning right now about it

1:05:25because it's one of those things that is

1:05:28taboo

1:05:30so i'm thinking of repression here not

1:05:32just at the level of an individual

1:05:34psychology but also at the level of a

1:05:35society

1:05:37about taboo topics

1:05:39and

1:05:40being a fragmented body is not something

1:05:43that we like to talk about

1:05:47the baby that cries on the flight is one

1:05:49that we wish never came

1:05:52the elderly person that holds us up in

1:05:54line or on the road is one that belongs

1:05:56in a retirement home

1:05:58we try and take people who are

1:06:00differently abled and shuttle them off

1:06:03into all the little areas where they can

1:06:05be out of the way for the rest of us

1:06:08that's one way that society represses

1:06:12embodiment at the level of fragmentation

1:06:15at the level of feeling inadequate

1:06:18it's the same thing we do too when we

1:06:20get up and get dressed in the morning

1:06:22there are parts of our bodies that we

1:06:23are proud of that we like to show off

1:06:26it may be your hair

1:06:28it may be your biceps

1:06:31it may be whatever the hell it is and

1:06:33that's what you put forward that's the

1:06:35part of your skin that you show and then

1:06:37there's the part of your body that's a

1:06:38little bit embarrassing to you

1:06:40the part that you don't like it as much

1:06:42maybe it has a scar on it

1:06:44maybe it's not as good as you wish it

1:06:47were

1:06:48and so we figure out ways to tuck it

1:06:49away

1:06:51isn't this the purpose of cosmetics as

1:06:53well

1:06:54to feature the parts of our faces and

1:06:56bodies that we want to show others and

1:06:59to hide the rest

1:07:02this process of

1:07:04concealment and unconcealment for the

1:07:07heideggerians out there

1:07:10is one that in lacanian terms we can

1:07:11talk about in terms of repression

1:07:14now i'm not being too technical with

1:07:16repression here

1:07:17notice i'm also not talking about trauma

1:07:20i'm not talking about traumatic

1:07:22encounters with the real

1:07:24and the repression that comes from that

1:07:26i'm not making too much fuss about

1:07:28primary and secondary repression

1:07:30for us for our purposes

1:07:33the most important

1:07:36aspect of repression

1:07:38is the unary trait

1:07:42this is

1:07:43the no

1:07:45that society dishes to us

1:07:48it's the no that the parent also gave to

1:07:50the child when they said

1:07:53no more crying use your words

1:07:56that's a prohibition

1:07:58it's a prohibition against

1:08:00living your life like a baby any longer

1:08:05now every time you cry

1:08:09you usually experience a kind of release

1:08:11known as joisons

1:08:13and it's a release because it's a

1:08:15release from the constraints of society

1:08:16that says you always need to put your

1:08:18[ __ ] into words

1:08:20and those of y'all that are therapists

1:08:22you know how this works

1:08:25you have clients that pass in and out of

1:08:27speech and tears left and right

1:08:31so this is not news to you

1:08:33bear in mind too that i'm not that kind

1:08:35of doctor

1:08:36so don't take what i'm saying here as

1:08:38like clinical advice in any regard all

1:08:41i'm good at doing is reading look on

1:08:44and talking about what he's up to

1:08:46so just hold me at that

1:08:50but bear in mind that what he is really

1:08:52doing is trying to train clinicians

1:08:55all the work that he is doing here is

1:08:57for an audience of clinicians who want

1:08:59to learn how to be better at their jobs

1:09:01so i can't help but bring a little bit

1:09:03of that into this even though bear in

1:09:05mind i'm not that kind of doctor

1:09:09so the stuff on the unary unitary trait

1:09:11is 21-22

1:09:15key pages for us

1:09:20what i want to draw from this

1:09:23diagram

1:09:24is that the process of introducing a

1:09:27child into language

1:09:29leaves a lot to be desired

1:09:34this process in lacanian terms is known

1:09:36as castration

1:09:38it's an unfortunate choice of word a

1:09:40much better word for it is the word i've

1:09:42been using for the past 10 minutes

1:09:44prohibition

1:09:47what the parent prohibits when they tell

1:09:50the child

1:09:54to use their words

1:09:56it's not a prohibition against crying

1:09:59it's a prohibition against any

1:10:02furtherance of life

1:10:04where all you have access to is the cry

1:10:07that is really important here

1:10:11what is fundamentally prohibited

1:10:15is any

1:10:16further living

1:10:18without prohibition

1:10:22the great start

1:10:25of the know of the father the name of

1:10:28the father

1:10:29of castration

1:10:31is a prohibition against

1:10:34life without prohibition

1:10:40does that make sense

1:10:42it's a weird one it's a weird logic to

1:10:44wrap your heads around but it's what

1:10:46lacan asks us to do

1:10:48with this notion of the unary trait

1:10:52whatever language you learned

1:10:54whatever your first word was the

1:10:58signification of that word was always

1:11:00the same

1:11:01the first word you heard

1:11:05it wasn't your name

1:11:09the function of that word was

1:11:11no

1:11:15no more living without a signifier

1:11:19no more life without language

1:11:22no more crying and expecting to get what

1:11:24you want

1:11:26now you have words as well

1:11:30and now you have to choose do i use my

1:11:33words or do i cry

1:11:35and parents will say that this is the

1:11:37great choice

1:11:39you can either use your words and tell

1:11:40me what's bothering you or you can

1:11:42continue to cry

1:11:44and we're not going to have any fun you

1:11:46can use your words and then we can have

1:11:47ice cream afterwards

1:11:49or you can continue to cry

1:11:51and we're not going to have any ice

1:11:52cream

1:11:54so there are all these like more or less

1:11:56coercive ways

1:11:57that the parent forces the child into

1:12:00this symbolic

1:12:02now here's the deal

1:12:05it's not a bad thing

1:12:07to be coerced into the symbolic it's

1:12:09actually the great

1:12:11form of containment

1:12:14for those of you that read winnicott and

1:12:15some of the other like british object

1:12:17relations folks this is the way that

1:12:19people feel held this is the basis for

1:12:21feeling like you have a sense of self

1:12:24coherence you fit in the world that's

1:12:26the job of the symbolic

1:12:29lacan believes that one of the great

1:12:31origins of psychosis

1:12:34is somebody who refuses

1:12:36who repudiates

1:12:38who forecloses

1:12:41this prohibition

1:12:44who does not accept the no who

1:12:48repudiates their own castration

1:12:51the word castration here obviously we're

1:12:53not talking about anybody physically

1:12:54operating on your jump

1:12:57castration here just means that you have

1:13:00to give something up

1:13:03in order to find your place in the world

1:13:05in order to get that ice cream

1:13:10and what you have to give up

1:13:13remind me on this what you have to give

1:13:17up is any continuance of your life

1:13:21where you didn't have to give anything

1:13:23up

1:13:25this is really important and it's one of

1:13:27the basic missteps that lacanian readers

1:13:30make all the time they think that what

1:13:33the child gives up

1:13:35in castration they think that what the

1:13:37parent prohibits

1:13:39when they exercise this prohibition

1:13:42is the feeling of wholeness

1:13:45and coherence that the child felt before

1:13:48that point when they were just at one

1:13:50with their world like a lizard on a rock

1:13:54they pooped when they wanted they pissed

1:13:56when they wanted people brought them

1:13:58food it was a blissed-out edenic

1:14:01experience

1:14:02wrong

1:14:04that is one of the greatest misreadings

1:14:06of what lacan is doing here

1:14:10wholeness is not something that is lost

1:14:16when split subjectivity

1:14:19is found

1:14:22wholeness is something that can only be

1:14:25accessed

1:14:26after split subjectivity has been found

1:14:30and only accessed as a fantasy

1:14:34adam and eve didn't know they were in

1:14:37eden

1:14:38until they had been kicked out

1:14:40and what i would suggest is they weren't

1:14:42even in eden until they got kicked out

1:14:47they didn't know where the [ __ ] they

1:14:48were

1:14:50until they got kicked out

1:14:54wholeness bliss uteromorphic experience

1:14:59at the level of infancy

1:15:03that is not something that we had and

1:15:05then subsequently lost

1:15:08when the signifier introduced the cut of

1:15:12no into us

1:15:15it is something that can only be

1:15:17accessed

1:15:19in the field of the signifier

1:15:22as

1:15:22loss

1:15:28as longing for

1:15:30as fantasy

1:15:35we weren't previously whole and then the

1:15:37signifier shattered us lacan's point is

1:15:40that we've always felt shattered

1:15:42that's the fragmented baby

1:15:47we weren't previously blissed out

1:15:50and then suddenly lost all that [ __ ]

1:15:52when we had to like learn the mother

1:15:54tongue

1:15:54not at all

1:15:56it's the sheer fact that the mother

1:15:58tongue divides us between

1:16:00bio-animalistic urges

1:16:02freudians hear the id

1:16:05and the norms and rules of society

1:16:07freudians hear the superego

1:16:10the sheer fact that we are now split

1:16:13between those two

1:16:14impulses

1:16:17is what gets us fantasizing about a

1:16:19world where we're not split

1:16:25the fantasy of wholeness

1:16:28is an effect structure of the fact of

1:16:31fragmentation

1:16:34in other words it's just the opposite of

1:16:37what we often assume

1:16:40wholeness is an effect structure

1:16:43a fantasy that we maintain

1:16:48to compensate for the difficulties

1:16:52of fragmentation

1:16:54which are the true

1:16:56facts of life

1:16:59the fact of life is that we are split

1:17:05the fantasy of wholeness

1:17:07is what allows us to deal with that

1:17:11all too often

1:17:13and you can see now how you get from the

1:17:15book of genesis to the new testament

1:17:18to the promise of heaven

1:17:21and you can also see why christianity

1:17:24for thousands of years has been peddled

1:17:27to slaves and subaltern subjectivities

1:17:30left and right because what it says over

1:17:32and over again is suffer the [ __ ]

1:17:36of your lived experience knowing that

1:17:39eternity wholeness and perfection await

1:17:44yes you live a miserable life now

1:17:48mister colonized subject

1:17:50but just remember heaven awaits

1:17:57christianity is what it is second only

1:18:00to capital in terms of popularity

1:18:03because

1:18:05it plays a part

1:18:08in using the fantasy of wholeness to

1:18:10come as a defense against

1:18:14serious irritation

1:18:16about the facts of fragmentation now

1:18:22so just remember what i'm getting after

1:18:23here

1:18:26the unary trait on 21-22 that we're

1:18:28about to read

1:18:34is a primal no

1:18:36a negation

1:18:40a prohibition

1:18:43and it's a prohibition against any more

1:18:46life

1:18:47without prohibition in it

1:18:51so let's check it out and then we'll

1:18:52take a little break

1:18:55we're on page 21

1:18:58toward the bottom

1:19:02this subjective ignition

1:19:06it's a weird stuff that's happening here

1:19:08and part of my job is to trot it out for

1:19:10you

1:19:12well nothing nothing other than the

1:19:14subjective initium i emphasized during

1:19:17the whole first part of my teaching last

1:19:19year namely that there's no conceivable

1:19:21advent of a subject as such except on

1:19:24the basis of the prior introduction of a

1:19:26signifier

1:19:27and the most straightforward of

1:19:28signifiers known as the unary trait

1:19:32what i'm telling you is that the unary

1:19:34trait is a primal signifier the function

1:19:36of which was no n-o

1:19:40the unitary trait precedes the subject

1:19:46in the beginning was the word

1:19:49now you see why it got us back to eden

1:19:51means that in the beginning stands the

1:19:54unary trait

1:19:55everything that is teachable has to

1:19:58preserve the stigmata

1:20:00of this ultra simple initial it's the

1:20:02only thing that can justify in our eyes

1:20:05the ideal of straightforwardness

1:20:08simplex singularity of the trait this is

1:20:11what we cause to enter the real

1:20:15whether the real likes it or not

1:20:18one thing is certain it does enter it

1:20:22and it has already entered before us

1:20:24it's along this path that all those

1:20:26subjects who've been dialoguing for a

1:20:28few centuries now have already had to

1:20:31get by as best they can with the

1:20:33condition that precisely

1:20:35here it is y'all

1:20:36betwixt them

1:20:38and the real lies the field of the

1:20:41signifier

1:20:44for it was already with the operation of

1:20:47the unary trait that primal know

1:20:51that they were constituted as subjects

1:20:54the diagram i just did for you

1:20:57is showing you how this happens

1:21:01how a baby is constituted as a subject

1:21:05the unary trait is the parent

1:21:08eventually coaching the baby from the

1:21:10field of need into

1:21:12demand and the technique of coaching in

1:21:15question here is prohibition

1:21:18technically known as castration

1:21:21in analysis there is something that

1:21:22stands prior to everything we can

1:21:25elaborate or understand

1:21:29i shall call this the presence of the

1:21:31other

1:21:32with a capital a

1:21:34and by this

1:21:36here he means the symbolic society

1:21:39all the rules and norms and laws that

1:21:42govern your family life your

1:21:43neighborhood

1:21:45your social order and the like the other

1:21:47is there it's on this path and with the

1:21:49same intention that we meet the

1:21:51indication i've already given you

1:21:53concerning something that goes much

1:21:54farther still namely anxiety

1:21:58the path in question

1:22:01is the path on page 4

1:22:03that leads up from the big a other

1:22:07to that little d known as desire

1:22:10the graph of desire is a trail map

1:22:14his use of path here is very specific

1:22:18this is a trail map

1:22:20for subjectivity and everybody finds

1:22:23themselves right now at this very moment

1:22:26somewhere on that map

1:22:29lacan right now is talking about the

1:22:30pathway that gets us

1:22:33from the big a other who has all the

1:22:36answers to the experience of desire

1:22:40and with it not knowing what we want

1:22:45but the point before we pause again

1:22:49is that he's saying that this is all in

1:22:51place before

1:22:53you emerge as a waking talking

1:22:57remembering subject

1:22:59it doesn't mean you didn't exist prior

1:23:01to that point you were there all right

1:23:04but you didn't have a life

1:23:06you were alive but you didn't have a

1:23:08life

1:23:10it's at the it's in the field of the

1:23:11symbolic that you can have a life an

1:23:14identity a sense of self

1:23:16a sense of meaning

1:23:18a sense of containment

1:23:21this would be the great disagreement

1:23:24with the object relations school

1:23:26especially the brits

1:23:28after klein

1:23:30containment occurs in the field of the

1:23:33symbolic

1:23:34not in the pre-linguistic

1:23:36experience

1:23:38of the mother child dyad

1:23:42that's not where containment occurs in

1:23:44fact that's a field of horror

1:23:47real horror

1:23:50and if you don't believe me just think

1:23:52about

1:23:53the biology of an infant

1:23:56six months old they have a highly

1:23:58developed perceptual ability they can

1:24:00see across the room they can see all

1:24:01kinds of [ __ ]

1:24:03but they can't get up and do anything

1:24:04about it

1:24:05they can see the dog walking over to

1:24:08them

1:24:10but they don't even know how to cry out

1:24:13please somebody save me from this dog

1:24:17they watch the dog approach

1:24:19its victim

1:24:21and can do nothing more than watch

1:24:26lacan's belief when it comes to infancy

1:24:29is not that it's some uteromorphic

1:24:31experience of bliss it's not the garden

1:24:34of eden

1:24:36it's the lost book of dante's inferno

1:24:41[ __ ] is raw [ __ ] is animalistic

1:24:46the only reason why lacan would have

1:24:48liked to live to be 150 i think

1:24:51is so that he could watch nature

1:24:52documentaries

1:24:54and when you really get into some nature

1:24:56documentaries yeah it's beautiful and

1:24:58all but that [ __ ] is fierce

1:25:00there's some rugged business that

1:25:02happens out there in nature left and

1:25:04right

1:25:07that's what it's like to be a baby

1:25:10constantly subject to the whims of a

1:25:12bunch of idiots

1:25:15always in danger of death

1:25:18it's terrifying

1:25:21the symbolic is what provides us with

1:25:24safety

1:25:25the symbolic is what saves us

1:25:29even at the risk of neurosis

1:25:34it's a quarter to eight

1:25:36what do you all think five or ten

1:25:37minutes

1:25:39as you can tell i'm determined for you

1:25:40to get your money's worth

1:25:43all right let's take 10 minutes come

1:25:45back here at 7 57.

1:25:48i'll see you then okay

1:35:29all right y'all welcome back

1:35:52all right let's start with some

1:35:54questions sometimes a 10-minute break

1:35:55gives folks an opportunity to come up

1:35:57and be like what the [ __ ] was that about

1:36:00so by all means feel free to pose that

1:36:02question or some

1:36:03slightly more focused version of it

1:36:20one i have going back quite a bit

1:36:24all the way back to your t-chart on the

1:36:26giant post-it note

1:36:27when you said the self is the ego

1:36:30what is the signified self then

1:36:35the signified self i would say is

1:36:37usually so you're looking at this side

1:36:39of it is this right

1:36:41yeah

1:36:42yeah i tend to put the ego over here at

1:36:45the level of like gramatological subject

1:36:49and here i'm building on the

1:36:53i'm kind of mixing graph one and graph

1:36:55two from the subversion of the subject

1:36:57essay

1:36:58kind of leaving off all the ego work

1:37:00that comes along with it

1:37:03in order to combine these two things

1:37:05my impulse here

1:37:07is to whenever the ego is involved is to

1:37:11use this as a way of describing our

1:37:12linguistified selves

1:37:15the parts of us that usually are well

1:37:16represented by that great signifier i

1:37:21then what's the other half the signifier

1:37:26oh are you asking the question of

1:37:28signifier and signified

1:37:32yes kind of

1:37:33yeah like so on one hand you wrote down

1:37:35ego what do you write down on the other

1:37:37hand

1:37:38on the other side here

1:37:40yeah i write unconscious

1:37:43unconscious okay thank you

1:37:45yeah you're welcome absolutely and i

1:37:47guess if it would be helpful

1:37:49i would say over here on the side of the

1:37:51ego with the symbolic you're going to

1:37:53have signifiers and signifieds

1:37:57lacan is primarily interested in taking

1:38:00sausure

1:38:01and flipping his

1:38:03image of a sign upside down in order to

1:38:05have the signifier not the signified be

1:38:08the primary element

1:38:10so the instance of the unconscious is

1:38:12another essay from the mid 50s that you

1:38:14can check out where lacan's doing the

1:38:16work of

1:38:17having signifiers and signifieds popping

1:38:19at the same time but he really wants to

1:38:22give pride of place to the signifier

1:38:26see we've got the signified up here this

1:38:29little bitty withered s if you can see

1:38:32it

1:38:34the reason why it's small and withered

1:38:36or in in the case of font it's

1:38:38italicized is because lacan is trying to

1:38:41say that it's not worth as much as the

1:38:44capital s signifier

1:38:46that you can see in

1:38:49the image that he offers for the

1:38:52signifier of the lack in the other

1:38:56also in the same

1:38:59graph of desire so here what you would

1:39:00see if you can see that

1:39:03is a capital s

1:39:05as big as the capital a next to it

1:39:07that's going to be signifier

1:39:10for the purposes of this sketch over

1:39:13here i would put signifiers and

1:39:16signifieds on the side of our

1:39:19sociolinguistic existence

1:39:21as egos

1:39:23egos are constantly wrapped up in the

1:39:26question of

1:39:28how best to signify to others

1:39:31my import as a self my value the way

1:39:35that i have my [ __ ] together they're

1:39:37constantly obsessively you might even

1:39:39say

1:39:40thinking about which signifiers can best

1:39:44um

1:39:45elicit

1:39:47recognition as a certain type of person

1:39:50from another being

1:39:52so i put signifiers and signifieds over

1:39:54there

1:39:56and but also please remember this

1:39:59that

1:40:01the unconscious is structured like a

1:40:04language

1:40:05and when lacan says this what he means

1:40:07is that the unconscious the operational

1:40:11logic of the unconscious is linguistic

1:40:14it also relies on signifiers and

1:40:17signifies

1:40:18so what's repressed into the unconscious

1:40:21in the case of a traumatic event

1:40:24is not the event itself

1:40:26it's some signifier of that event

1:40:29not necessarily a synagogue signifier

1:40:32that would represent the event but maybe

1:40:34a metanomic signifier some fragment of

1:40:37that event

1:40:39that captures it for you that's what

1:40:41gets repressed

1:40:43and that's lacan's point too about his

1:40:45return to freud

1:40:47in this period is he's saying basically

1:40:49all i'm doing

1:40:51is re-reading freud in the wake of a new

1:40:54discipline that he didn't have access to

1:40:56called linguistics

1:40:59and so what he's saying is what freud is

1:41:00talking about with primary and secondary

1:41:02repression

1:41:05are signifiers

1:41:06or in the case of freud's essay on

1:41:09anxiety

1:41:10it's all about the signal

1:41:12of anxiety and lacan's like ding ding

1:41:14ding winner winner chicken dinner that's

1:41:17a signifier [ __ ]

1:41:19the khan constantly wants to say that if

1:41:22freud had just had access to a

1:41:25department of linguistics

1:41:27there'd be no need for jacques lacon

1:41:31the khan is just linguistifying freudian

1:41:34thought

1:41:35and part of what he does with that is to

1:41:37say that the ego is wrapped up in

1:41:40signifiers and signifieds

1:41:42but the unconscious is a repository

1:41:47of repressed signifiers

1:41:51and it operates the same way that a

1:41:53language does

1:41:54which allows those of us who study the

1:41:56history and philosophy of communication

1:41:58to say something like this

1:42:01just as the unconscious is structured

1:42:03like a language

1:42:05we also know that languages have their

1:42:07own unconscious

1:42:10the word for that is etymology

1:42:12lexical history philology

1:42:15the way that a word or a phrase can have

1:42:18some sort of a hidden meaning

1:42:22like my dad likes to use the phrase rule

1:42:24of thumb

1:42:26i'm like bro

1:42:28you know that was from like when people

1:42:30used to beat women and children and the

1:42:32rule of thumb said you could legally

1:42:35beat these humans

1:42:38as long as you didn't use a stick that

1:42:40was bigger than your thumb

1:42:43so the definition of a switch was that

1:42:45i'm from indiana he also just pardoned

1:42:47me but like the definition of a switch

1:42:49was it was one of them sticks that could

1:42:51make a whipping noise as it came through

1:42:53the air

1:42:54it was bendable it was pliable you

1:42:56weren't being beaten you were being

1:42:58disciplined

1:43:00learning the rule of thumb

1:43:02i explained that to him he was appalled

1:43:04and yet he still uses the phrase so go

1:43:07figure like i said i'm not that kind of

1:43:08doctor

1:43:10but that's an example of how

1:43:12language expressions signifiers phrases

1:43:16can have their own unconscious

1:43:18so the great insight between language

1:43:20and the unconscious

1:43:22is also one that shot through with a

1:43:24rich understanding of signification

1:43:26so it's a great question

1:43:28and i would want to put signifiers on

1:43:30the other side too

1:43:32just to be fair

1:43:34and i think that in the future maybe

1:43:36what i would do is i teach this stuff

1:43:38all the time but maybe what i would do

1:43:40is just offer like just post some

1:43:41lectures on youtube where we're just

1:43:44looking at what lacan is doing with

1:43:45signification and signifiers because

1:43:48everybody else can read the freudian

1:43:49stuff

1:43:51but then the advent of linguistics and

1:43:54here i'm a professor of communication

1:43:56studies could be the like helpful key

1:43:58that unlocks what makhan is doing so i

1:44:01appreciate that question i think it's

1:44:03dynamite what else do you all get

1:44:06since you just brought in the sister

1:44:08piece for a second i'm not deep with him

1:44:10but that reminded me of a thought i had

1:44:12a while back and i wanted to check this

1:44:13out so if the unconscious is structured

1:44:15like a language and sasure kind of posed

1:44:17that the

1:44:18sign like points to the arbitrariness of

1:44:22the sign right the sign is just there's

1:44:24nothing like inherently elephant about

1:44:26the word elephant or whatever right

1:44:28so

1:44:29then the fact of its meaning hang on i

1:44:30had this this was like in a chat i had

1:44:32or something uh the fact of it standing

1:44:34in for a concept gains meaning in its

1:44:36relationship to other signs that's right

1:44:39similar to the signifying chain for

1:44:40lacan right like it's in the retro

1:44:42version that you actually understand the

1:44:44final you don't know what you mean until

1:44:45you get to the end to kind of go yep

1:44:47that's better

1:44:48yep and

1:44:49what

1:44:51when when you when you dip into sewer

1:44:52here is language as a differential

1:44:55system where words only have meaning

1:44:58insofar as they connect to other words

1:45:01so if i get a dictionary out and i look

1:45:03up the word cat

1:45:04it's going to tell me like fuzzy

1:45:06four-legged thing

1:45:08well in order to understand what that

1:45:10means i have to also understand the

1:45:11meaning of the word fuzzy

1:45:13which has its own entry in the

1:45:14dictionary and i look up fuzzy and fuzzy

1:45:17has five or six words behind it as well

1:45:19and so you get this

1:45:21what now in the digital age we would

1:45:23call a network

1:45:25you get a whole network or a

1:45:26constellation of terms

1:45:29and it's a differential network because

1:45:32cat doesn't equal fuzzy

1:45:34but in order to understand cat you have

1:45:36to understand

1:45:38its differential relationship

1:45:41to the word

1:45:42fuzzy alright who did it

1:45:48together mode what a joke

1:45:52what a what a cruel and unusual

1:45:54punishment to have us be together mode

1:45:56back at stonehenge again

1:45:59you know we're going to talk about

1:46:00perversion

1:46:01believe it or not the seminar on anxiety

1:46:03is about the clinical structure of

1:46:05perversion

1:46:06and we're going to talk about sadism and

1:46:07masochism

1:46:09whoever just put us in the together mode

1:46:12pay attention when we get to the

1:46:14discussions of sadism

1:46:18i'm just kidding of course that's the

1:46:19only sadistic joke i know

1:46:22so yes um it is important to understand

1:46:25scissor here it's great to understand um

1:46:28the arbitrary nature

1:46:30of a signifier's relationship to a

1:46:32signified

1:46:33and here what he means here is a word in

1:46:36relation to its meaning or its

1:46:38concept so you have in caesura crash

1:46:42course here y'all

1:46:44you have a signified and a signifier

1:46:46that are bound up together there's a

1:46:48word and it's meaning

1:46:50and they're caught up together in the

1:46:51singular entity known as a sign

1:46:55and a sign has a referent

1:46:57so when i say the word lion

1:46:59an image comes to your mind

1:47:02and the word plus the image is the sign

1:47:05and then there's that thing outside your

1:47:08window looking into right now wishing

1:47:09you'd come out so we could have you for

1:47:11dinner

1:47:12a real lion out there in the world that

1:47:15would be the referent

1:47:17and cesura now is talking about how

1:47:19signifiers get linked up with signifieds

1:47:22and times right there's no necessary

1:47:25relationship it's an arbitrary

1:47:26relationship

1:47:28what interests look on most about this

1:47:30part of cesar's thought is the

1:47:33differential relation

1:47:36that has to be maintained for a

1:47:38signifier to link up and stay linked up

1:47:41with a signified

1:47:43in order for cat to mean a fuzzy

1:47:46four-legged thing

1:47:47it has to exist in a differential

1:47:49relation to all these other

1:47:52terms

1:47:55so

1:47:56the unconscious is very much like this

1:47:58as well

1:47:59you repress one signifier from one

1:48:01traumatic event

1:48:02and then you repress another signifier

1:48:04from another traumatic event and down

1:48:07there in the deep hot molten

1:48:10core of yourself

1:48:12these [ __ ] link up

1:48:15and now you've got signifiers that are

1:48:17kind of hooked to each other

1:48:19in a differential

1:48:21relation

1:48:22they are still connected to each other

1:48:24but connected by difference

1:48:27the same way you and your co-dependent

1:48:29partner are connected but also by

1:48:32difference

1:48:33is this all making sense

1:48:36yeah so that's what he's up to with

1:48:37cesur i'm happy to field a couple more

1:48:40questions before

1:48:41we launch into the next part

1:48:44sam i have a q so in order

1:48:48for to have the unconscious you have to

1:48:50go through castration first

1:48:52yes is that okay

1:48:54yes and it's part of the reason why

1:48:56there's an ambiguous relationship

1:48:58between psychosis and the unconscious

1:49:01it's tempting and sometimes people read

1:49:03lacan as in seminar three

1:49:05as saying that the unconscious doesn't

1:49:08exist for the psychotic

1:49:11and it's more accurate if you read the

1:49:13later lacan in the 20s on the synthome

1:49:16to say that actually what happens is the

1:49:18psychotic just has a kind of screwed up

1:49:20relationship to the unconscious

1:49:22and the reason why their relationship to

1:49:24the unconscious is screwed up

1:49:27is because the psychotic has a broken

1:49:28relationship to language

1:49:31it's their relationship to the symbolic

1:49:33that is fundamentally jacked

1:49:36and let me go even more precise than

1:49:38that

1:49:39the fundamental

1:49:41[Music]

1:49:43breakage for the psychotic relative to

1:49:45language

1:49:47is that they have repudiated

1:49:49the unary trait they have refused the no

1:49:54they refused prohibition they absolutely

1:49:58denied it they foreclosed it is the

1:50:00technical term in english that we use

1:50:03and what that did was it denied them

1:50:06access to a place in the symbolic

1:50:10and because they have no place in the

1:50:12symbolic

1:50:16the psychotic then has to look for even

1:50:19bigger others

1:50:21but they're not symbolic others their

1:50:23imaginary others

1:50:25colonel sanders the queen of england

1:50:28barack obama

1:50:30the russians

1:50:31they're all

1:50:32reading my emails

1:50:34you can see here like the paranoic

1:50:36structure of the psychotic coming into

1:50:38play here they live their life in

1:50:40relation to

1:50:41enormous imaginary others

1:50:45that do the work of containing them if

1:50:48you will

1:50:49that the symbolic does for the rest of

1:50:51us

1:50:52we don't need the delusion we don't need

1:50:55the hallucination of a giant imaginary

1:50:58other like aliens

1:51:00trying to read my mind which is why i

1:51:02wear tinfoil every night we don't need

1:51:05that because the symbolic holds us

1:51:09language society

1:51:11law neighborhood gives us meaning

1:51:15and the reason why it can give us

1:51:17meaning is because we accepted

1:51:19castration

1:51:21we accepted the no

1:51:23we said fine whatever you win i'll stop

1:51:26crying now and i'll use my words

1:51:29and the parent immediately says

1:51:31terrific johnny now that you've used

1:51:34your words i know exactly what you want

1:51:36you can have it and we're gonna go get

1:51:38ice cream and you're mommy's little boy

1:51:42you see what i'm saying so you suddenly

1:51:44have an identity you have a place things

1:51:46start to work better for you when you

1:51:49use your words

1:51:51little kids for instance they hit a lot

1:51:53too

1:51:54they don't get what they want and

1:51:55they'll just like whack you over the

1:51:57head with some [ __ ]

1:51:59and you can have a sibling who's like

1:52:01use your words as they're being pushed

1:52:04down the stairs by a toddler

1:52:06use your words as they're being thrown

1:52:09off a cliff

1:52:11so the idea here is that

1:52:13language despite all of the violence

1:52:15that it really does to bodies

1:52:19is an alternative to violence

1:52:21it's how you get expressions like sticks

1:52:23and stones may break your bones but

1:52:24words will never hurt you now we know

1:52:26that's not true words hurt like hell

1:52:30but the idea of language as an

1:52:32alternative to violence is also well

1:52:36emblem

1:52:37um well emblazoned in the split subject

1:52:40the split subject is somebody who can

1:52:42choose to operationalize their

1:52:44sociolinguistic self

1:52:47without resorting to the violence

1:52:49that only their body can effect

1:52:52if that makes sense

1:52:54you have access to both

1:52:57you know right you can talk your way as

1:52:58much as you can but when you can't talk

1:53:00anymore then sometimes you gotta fight a

1:53:02fool

1:53:03you gotta throw hands whatever the hell

1:53:04you get into

1:53:06but that happens at some level

1:53:08this kind of recalcitrance happens all

1:53:10the time in human life too

1:53:13your body if it hasn't already will

1:53:14eventually tell you no

1:53:17it will resist your fantasies

1:53:19at the level of an injury

1:53:22usually

1:53:24so there are these ways that um

1:53:28the body

1:53:29pushes back

1:53:31and when it does so in a way that's

1:53:32startling and unexpected that is called

1:53:35an encounter with the real

1:53:38the real is that pop that your knee

1:53:41makes

1:53:42just before you collapse

1:53:46while talking with somebody about how

1:53:47much of a jogger you are

1:53:53but we were talking about desire

1:53:56got time for one more question

1:54:00before i give you the rundown on desire

1:54:02here and set us up for anxiety

1:54:05so to speak

1:54:12all right

1:54:13i'm gonna take three passes at desire

1:54:16each more complicated than the next

1:54:20ideally one or two of these maybe three

1:54:23are going to land for you

1:54:25each of them is going to be important in

1:54:27its own way

1:54:28and remember what's at stake here

1:54:31desire is the antidote to anxiety it is

1:54:34a defense against anxiety in the case of

1:54:37the neurotic

1:54:38so what we're looking at now is a kind

1:54:40of alchemical

1:54:42potion

1:54:45the structure the chemical ingredients

1:54:48that are going to go into something that

1:54:50you can cook up for a client suffering

1:54:53from generalized adrift or acute anxiety

1:54:57that's lacan's wager here is that if you

1:54:59understand how desire works you will

1:55:01understand how to treat someone maybe

1:55:04even your own anxiety

1:55:06it's a wager it's his wager not mine

1:55:09i'm just gonna try and tell you

1:55:11how it works

1:55:13okay first

1:55:15recall the crying baby

1:55:17the baby cries

1:55:20i show up with a blanket

1:55:23now

1:55:24if the child was cold i give it a

1:55:27blanket the cold goes away the child's

1:55:31need has been met

1:55:35but when you bring a kid a blanket

1:55:38you're not just bringing them some

1:55:40object some material thing that can

1:55:43satisfy their need

1:55:45you're also caring for them

1:55:50what matters as much if not more so to

1:55:52the child

1:55:55is your attention

1:55:58more than the blanket

1:56:00which is how you can get kids who are

1:56:02like i'm hungry and you're like well how

1:56:04about this to eat no how about that to

1:56:06eat no how about something along these

1:56:09lines no

1:56:10they're not actually hungry if they were

1:56:12hungry they'd take the first thing you

1:56:14gave them and eat it

1:56:16if they're hungry for anything it's your

1:56:18attention

1:56:20so there's a difference here

1:56:22when need has been met there's some

1:56:25aspect of demand that lingers

1:56:28because when you bring a child a blanket

1:56:30you don't just say

1:56:32here this is for your cold

1:56:34you say

1:56:35i'm bringing this to you because i care

1:56:38for you

1:56:39i'm the kind of person that cares for

1:56:40you i love you

1:56:42that's what you tell the child

1:56:45and what i would like to suggest is that

1:56:48the child's demand for love and

1:56:51affection and care is insatiable

1:56:56and so is yours

1:56:59nobody on this call has ever been loved

1:57:01too much

1:57:03you may have been smothered

1:57:06and felt anxious about that

1:57:08you may have had a helicopter parent or

1:57:10partner in your life a roommate just

1:57:13never would get out of your stuff

1:57:16that's not love though

1:57:21love here means care

1:57:25love here means recognition affection

1:57:28attention

1:57:31and it's insatiable we can never get

1:57:33enough of it

1:57:36the first definition of desire i want to

1:57:39give you is this

1:57:41desire is what's left of demand after

1:57:44need has been met

1:57:50desire is what's left of demand

1:57:53after need has been met

1:57:58and you could even run it as

1:58:00a mathematical equation desire equals

1:58:05demand

1:58:07minus need

1:58:16so here it is again

1:58:18a child cries you bring it a blanket

1:58:21their need for warmth has been satisfied

1:58:25and what we know about needs is that

1:58:27once they're satisfied they go away

1:58:30if you have a need known as hunger you

1:58:32put some food on it and it goes away

1:58:37but the demand

1:58:38that the child has the request is a

1:58:41better translation from the french

1:58:43the request that the child puts forth

1:58:46when they cry

1:58:47is always also

1:58:50a cry for attention for care to be held

1:58:57and that demand and that is what's left

1:59:00of demand after need has been met

1:59:03it's a part of the child that is

1:59:05insatiable

1:59:06that will never get enough of your

1:59:08attention

1:59:11that's the first and most basic

1:59:13understanding of desire

1:59:16desire is what's left of demand after